


From The Fields

by Spencer B (Spencer_B)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Dystopia, F/F, F/M, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Science Fiction, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 12:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14308950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spencer_B/pseuds/Spencer%20B
Summary: This is not a war. They are not soldiers. Revolution isn't a word that they paint on their banners - survival is.A tree falls in the forest, the noise might go on unheard but its effects will be seen.





	From The Fields

Seven years have passed.

Ezra is not quite fourteen yet, he will be soon (if he’s run his numbers correctly at least). There will be no birthday celebration, if he’s lucky he’ll avoid the heavy fist of a Caretaker. His cheek still stings where a new bruise is just beginning to turn, two days ago he had been struck, backhanded, by Thomson. Officially that’s his name, to the children here he is the Director, and even at five-foot-six he cuts an imposing figure. Ezra isn’t scared of him.

Just wary.

He’s been struck before, more times than he could count. Everyone here has been. Ezra is lucky enough that he’s learnt to stay out of the way of fists in the more recent years, but it still happens. Inevitably he’ll open his mouth on the wrong day, to the wrong person. As much as he tries to keep his head down sometimes he can’t help but talk back. That wouldn’t be as much of a problem in itself but when he tries to stand up for others things escalate.

The Caretakers don’t like him. Empathy is a skill unneeded in the Empire – this is a lesson its children are taught early on. Kindness is a falsity that will get you, at best, killed. At worst the consequences don’t bear thinking about. In the eyes of Terra, all the is worthy is blood and respect. To earn the latter usually involves copious amounts of blood. Over the years, Ezra has hardened himself against empathy, built up his walls to survive but at the end of the day he can’t help but be kind when it matters most.

And he hates it. That spark that still aches inside of him. All the kids here do. They are packrats who huddle together for survival – of course they’re all going to flinch if one of them is hurt.

Perhaps its different, elsewhere in the Empire, but orphans have no one to turn to bar each other. It is unsurprising that they are times where Ezra wishes he could find that hard, blank, hatred that the rest of his race seem to revel in. Wishes he could just ignore someone in pain the way the Empire tells him to. But he can’t.

A fatal flaw.

One day it will get him killed. Not today, but the future comes close every day, beckoned in by the dull emptiness of Caytera.

The orphanage is cold again. It’s not surprising, in an old, worn down building but Ezra finds himself noting it anyway. The snow and ice have finally settled properly, and it signals the start of a long winter. The Caretakers are too busy being warm to bother with the children on this First Day, and the children are far too busy being cold to complain about the weather. On Earth it would be a mostly mild October, according to the one calendar they have, but the seasons on Caytera are violent and harsh and come quickly with no warning. The temperatures constantly stuck on scorching or freezing.

It is days like today that Ezra misses Earth, its mild weather patterns controlled by ever advancing technology. He pushes the thought away.

Today marks the beginning of a long season, he thinks to himself. Frost gathers on the inside of all the windows, crawling in from the edges. When he breathes, Ezra can see the vapour of his breath, hanging listlessly in the air. It will be a hard winter but that’s no deviation from the cycle. All the previous winters had been just the same.

Everything about Caytera is cruel.

It is a punishment.

For no crime other than being born to unworthy parents they are sequestered here.

It is a warning.

To all the people out there who might defy the Empire – you can escape us but your families can’t. Your children can’t. We will hunt them down, an example of what happens to those who might rebel. We will parade them and then leave them to slowly rot. Ezra knows that they are the hated children, they pay for the sins of their dead parents. If not them, who else would? All insubordination must be swiftly punished.

This is the way of the Empire.

This human abhorrence of compassion, this brilliant cruelty that infects all corners of the Empire. Ezra understands it far too well and he despairs it. Wonders what it makes him. An outlier or someone just waiting to fall? He isn’t the only one watching, the same question echoes in the eyes of the others rotting here.

After all there aren’t exactly many human children in a place like Caytera. Most of them are luckier. Pampered orphans of Empire heroes who are given warm homes with plenty of foods, sold Empire propaganda, and an easy life. After all human’s are the conquerors, the colonizers, the commanders of the Empire. Terra will always prize its own children more than orphaned aliens.

Most of the time at least.

Ezra isn’t so lucky.

His parents are dead. Gone. They left him here. He doesn’t think about it – can’t. What can he do? Say? If he thinks too much it makes him feel sick and violent, a burning anger that bubbles up and over like boiling acid. The type of sickness that threatens to destroy everything in its path. Dangerous anger, too easily noticeable.

Forget about them, he tells himself. Forget.

He must forget. Ezra rubs his hands together and turns away from the window. The scenery outside hasn’t changed, the same empty fields sit outside. Miles and miles of them, growing nothing at all just growing greyer as it snows. Any neighbours they have are far away, as if the Empire can forget about them if they’re hidden out on the edges of the galaxy. Out of sight and out of mind.

                _If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to here it…_

“Ezra!”

Ezra is tugging on his sweater. It’s old, a ratty and threadbare thing. He ignores the call of his name in favour of working it over his head. The fabric is damp and he doubts it will warm him up but he tries anyway.

“Ezra..!” The voice is tight and brittle, threatening to get annoyed if not angry. He looks up at Katzi, she stands in the door way with one hand on her hip. The dull light washes out her purple skin, her fingers have gone bluish in the cold.

“What?” He pulls absently at one of his sleeves where it has grown too short to reach his wrist. The sweater had long become too small but it is the only one he owns so he keeps it anyway, hopes he can make it stretch just a little longer. Katzi walks closer, her feet fall heavy against the floor, they thud against the stone.

There is a hole at the cuff of his sleeve, Ezra looks away from her as she comes over and doesn’t meet her eyes. He fights the urge to pick at the hole, to unravel each stitch until there is nothing but a pile of yarn left. His fingers twitch. Ezra curls his hands into tight fists, torn nails digging into the soft flesh of his palms.

Katzi huffs, Ezra sighs and doesn’t look up. For a moment everything still, a stand off between two children too stubborn for their own good. Then everything collapses in on itself.

She grabs him by the wrist and pulls him forwards. “I found something, like, something cool, _ta_. C’mon.” Her voice seems to cut through the heavy fog that had settled around him. Ezra feels shocked and suddenly very much awake and he hates Katzi for it but can’t hate her. Can never hate her. For a moment he stumbles against her grip, as if he can’t get himself to move quite right. Sat still long enough to become a statue that suddenly finds itself moving again. He yields to her strength.

Katzi is stronger than him, taller too. Though her height just makes her look awkward and sharp, like fabric pulled too tight over a wire frame. Ezra is short and as stocky as a starved kid can get. Eyes are drawn to Katzi, but they pass over him. He’s glad for it.

Ezra looks up and raises both eyebrows at her. “Everything is cool, Katzi. In fact, everything is fucking freezing. In case you hadn’t notice its winter. Again. And its snowing outside.” He sounds both annoyed and disbelieving and snorts out something that can’t really be called a laugh. Ezra blows a few wisps of dark hair from his face and shakes his wrist from her grip.

“Fuck you, Ezra, you know what I mean, _ta_. Just, hurry up – “, there is a half-smile on her face even as she flips her middle finger up at him. It is a uniquely human gesture and yet doesn’t look out of place on a girl with three fingers. Katzi turns away and leaves him, her walking once more echoing around the room. Ezra knows what she’s doing. Baiting him. Drawing out his curiosity. There is a moment where he considers not going, just to be contrary, but then the need to know just _what_ she’s found rears its head inside of him.

Goddammit.

Ezra huffs, watches the steam curl of his breath in the cold air, and then shoves his hands in his pockets and follows her. What else is there to do? Stay at the orphanage and wallow in his own self-pity, staring all day at the fields or the ceilings? At least following Katzi gives him something different to do. He listens to Katzi’s steps, how they echo against the walls as if calling for attention. Not for the first time he wonders how they became friends. Katzi is loud and brash and the opposite of everything Ezra tries to be.

He follows her.

“I’m coming, asshole. Where are we even going?”

“Not far, _ta_. Well, it’s kind of far – I was out at the quarry, _ta_.” Katzi doesn’t look back at him, her words are carefully chosen and light on the wind. Ezra knows why. He grits his jaw and lets out a slow, low sound. It’s somewhere between a groan and a sigh, a sound he doesn’t have a word for. As he stops in the snow his shoulders tense up, temples aching as he grinds his teeth together.

“Katzi, that’s dangerous. ‘Specially this time of year, you know its dangerous! Why…?” They’ve had this argument a thousand times. Ezra hates Katzi for everything she puts him through, he loves her because she is family, bonded through ice. They might not be blood relatives but what does that matter out here?

“Oh, shut up Ezra, _ta._ You go out there all the time, hypocrite.” When Katzi replies her voice is cold as the frozen landscape around them and quiet.

He winces at having his own hypocrisy thrown back at him. He just… worries. Katzi is the person closest to his heart in this world, they’ve only been stuck together in this place for years. It isn’t that he doubts he strength or the steadiness of her feet, he just isn’t sure how else to care. After all, he has already lost one family.

Ezra goes quiet. The wind curls around them both makes his ears burn. That could just be his own embarrassment. They are stopped in the snow and the moment lingers on him. He puts his head down and follows her, retreating into the silence. “…sorry.”

He isn’t sure if she hears him. Does it matter?

They walk for a long while, not talking, their feet crunching against the snow. The quarry is far to the south – Ezra has never measure the distance (how would he?) but the extreme weather only makes the journey longer. Ezra ignores the numbing of his toe where water leaks through and shoves his hands beneath his armpits to keep them warm. There is an itch at the tip of is nose that makes him wrinkle his face up. A minor annoyance but not one that will make him move his hands away.

“I hate snow, Katzi. I fucking hate it.” He mutters, kicking hard at a growing pile of it. The decision is almost immediately regretted.

“Great Goddess, same, _ta_!” Katzi replies almost instantly, sounding amazed and breathless. The tension snaps and Ezra can’t help himself, he laughs loudly. Through the snow and wind the sound is muffled and quickly carried away but it brings them back together. With a half jog he catches up with Katzi and grins at her. He shakes his head and she rolls her four eyes back. Everything is slightly mad but at least they are together. She presses her shoulders against his, trying to keep them warm. It doesn’t help.

Ezra loves her.

“So. What did you find?”

“Nope. You gotta wait and see now, _ta_. Teach you to be rude to me, hmm _ta_?” She pops the ‘p’ and sticks her tongue out. That lasts all of a second, Katzi pulling the muscle back in with a regretful wince. Ezra can see her berating herself under her breath in rapid Qyylt, fast enough that he can’t understand her.

It’s probably along the lines of ‘ _why the fuck did I just do that, its freezing, ta’_.

“C’mon Katzi. You drag me out into this goddamn ice hell, you can at least tell me why.” She stops mid-sentence and he gives her pathetic, wide eyes.

They’re useless.

“Nu-uh, stop whining, we’ll be there soon _ta_.”

Ezra sighs. Shakes his head. In the distance he can see the quarry, a sharp drop on the horizon. It had been a mining operation some years ago. Before the orphanage was around. Before the Empire even, say the whispers passed from kid to kid. Ezra doesn’t know how true that is, it feels impossible. The Empire seems timeless, like its been around forever, looming over all of space. It makes his head hurt to think about it. Logically he knows it can’t be true, but it feels that way sometimes. As if they’re never going to be able to escape the tyranny, this endless cycle of kings and queens.

He swallows. Pushes down. The quarry has long since lost its purpose and fallen into disuse. Now it is nothing more than a dumping ground for all the things the Empire wants to get rid of in secrecy. That is what all of Caytera seems to be made for – the hiding of undesirables. Whether its orphaned children, traitors, and criminals, or sabotaged ships and alien escape pods, it doesn’t matter. Hide them all far away and people won’t find out. It’s lucky, he guesses, that there were never any bodies mixed in with all the wreckage.

Ezra doesn’t understand most of the ships, beyond ‘this could fly once’ but he likes the quarry anyway. There’s a logic to machinery, no need to wear a mask around it. Just metal and mathematics working together in steps. Most of the time, at least.

Sometimes, when he’s got nothing better to do, Ezra wonders what he might have been like if he’d grown up anywhere else in the Empire. If his parents had kept their heads down, been good, loyal citizens. Perhaps he’d have been an engineer.

He doesn’t think about it too much. Another one of those painful thoughts that are best forgotten about. If he dwells on it too long he gets the same painful anger building up inside of him. There’s no point in useless dreams. Instead he just picks through what the Empire leaves behind and tinkers when he can. Alien tech ranges from dead to volatile and so he prefers to investigate in the summer when the weather isn’t another thing trying to bite off his extremities.

Supposedly the quarry is patrolled but Ezra has only seen soldiers around when things are being hastily dropped into the hole. They never stick around long, obviously preferring to be on and off Caytera as fast as possible. Which is fair, really. He can’t blame them because if he had a way off this planet he would have left it long ago.

Still, most kids stay away. Whether it’s a fear of the Empire that keeps them at home or simply the drop, Ezra doesn’t know. Perhaps they just prefer the hell they know.

It’s quiet at least. Something for just Katzi and him. No prying eyes makes it easier to slip in and out unnoticed.

“Here, come this way _ta_.” Katzi grabs him and it shakes him from his thoughts. She tugs him over to an edge, slippery with ice. Just the sight of it makes Ezra nervous. She lets go of him and grins, her left eyes wink.

Then she’s gone.

Over the edge.

Gone.

Ezra’s heart leaps into his throat and then plummets, heavy, into his stomach. He chokes on his breath and rushes closer to the edge, almost skidding. There’s fear buzzing in his ears and he slips to his knees to peer over into the quarry.

For a moment his vision his too blurry to see. He blinks hard to clear his eyes and scans down.

And she’s fine.

Under the lip of the cliff Katzi stands on a narrow but stable ledge. Her form is hidden by the precipice Ezra leans over. Fears gives way to heart pounding anger that aches in his chest.

“Fuck. Fucking hell don’t do that. Katzi! Are you trying to kill me? What the – don’t, don’t answer that. Don’t do that!” Ezra’s voice starts off high and hoarse, trailing into a mutter. His trousers are soaked through with melting snow, he stares down at her and scowls. Begins listing off every swear word he knows in as many languages as he can remember.

Katzi just grins. She has that look on her face that reads as pleased with herself. Irrationally proud. Ezra glares and he shakes his head. He’s not angry, not really, just shaken from the prank.

Slowly he stands up and brushes snow off his legs.

“Come on, _ta_!” Katzi blinks at him, first the top eyes and then the bottom. She has her hands on her waist and Ezra realises that she’s waiting for him to jump down. Of course she is. But he can’t stop himself hesitating, a primal part of him saying ‘ _no you idiot don’t jump off a cliff’_. Katzi huffs and Ezra balls his hands up into fists, turns, and carefully lowers himself down with a soft sound.

The drop is larger than he expected, the landing reverberates through his legs, but then he’s stood next to her.

“Screw you.” Ezra mutters as she throws a comforting arm around his shoulder.

“Oh, Ezra, stop being a big wimp, _ta_. Like a _nutzen_! You should have seen your face, so frightened _ta._ ” She laughs before shrugging lightly and tugging at him. “Look, it’s the easiest way to get down that I have found, so no complaining, _ta_.”

Ezra hates to admit it but he can see that she’s right. For calling him a _nutzen_ he shrugs her arm off his shoulder and peers across the quarry wall.

(He’s not sure what a _nutzen_ is but he doesn’t like being called one.)

From the top its impossible to see but looking now Ezra can see each roughly carved step, like stair case, curling down the walls of the cliff. They’re old. Probably forgotten about. He expects they were installed when the miners first came, they had to have been.

Somehow, they seem older. A certain impossibility, he tells his gut.

The climb down the quarry takes time, the steps are thin and worn in places and everything seems to be covered in a thin layer of ice. By the time they reach the bottom Ezra feels as if his hands and feet are going to fall off, they’re that cold. The rest of him is flushed red with exertion and his chest itches with sweat.

The warring bodily temperatures are the opposite of comfortable, they make him want to flap his hands or hiss. Or pull his shirt and jumper off completely. A bad idea for sure. Already he finds himself dreading the climb back up.

‘So, when are we going to see this ‘cool’ thing? Unless that was it, in which case, Katzi I hate you.’ He huffs out, digging his chewed off nails into his palms to fight the ‘ _strip now_ ’ urge.

His body is stupid and irrational and doesn’t listen to him yelling at it that getting naked would likely result in death.

Katzi rolls her eyes and doesn’t answer him bar jerking her head and continuing to walk. Ezra sighs and continues to trail after her. Down here the snow and ice haven’t found purchase like they have above, and he finds himself drying off as they walk beneath the wreckages. He’s still cold and damp, just not so soaked through anymore.

Which is an improvement. He looks up, absently following Katzi, entranced by the ships around them. Over them. A lot of them are in pieces, hanging precariously on another scrap of metal in a way that makes Ezra grimace.

As always, he has a certain (and healthy, in his opinion) fear of being squashed, should something suddenly shift. That would be a nasty way to die.

He shudders, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as he tries to will the imagery of metal and gore from his head. And he walks straight into Katzi who has stopped, making her stumble back onto his foot.

“Ow..!” Ezra lets out a whine and hops back on one leg, wobbling to the point that he almost falls over. Katzi groans and turns to look at him, exasperated.

“Oi, _nutzen_ , why didn’t you stop, _ta_?” Her voice seems to fill the small space they’ve found themselves in. Now that he’s been brought painfully back to the present,, Ezra realises that the sky can no longer be seen, they are stood in the shade of a large disk. The broken body of an Empire star ship.

“Why did you stop?”

“We’re here, Ezra, _ta._ Look.” She pushes him in front of her.

And he looks, straight ahead. Suddenly his breath is caught in his throat. It’s a small ship, not a shuttle but not made for a big crew. A private travelling vessel, perhaps. The colour has been lost to time and its battered, dented in places. Ezra can’t read the faded writing on its hull. She’s not perfect but she looks… whole.

As if she’s just been parked and forgotten here, not deliberately abandoned. All at once he wants to whistle or jump. Kiss Katzi maybe. He doesn’t not of those things, instead he shifts on the stop and takes a slow breath.

Katzi presses past him and taps on the door – what he assumes is a door. It opens slowly, creaking for a moment as it slides from bottom to top. Something must be stuck or broken because it won’t open fully and they have to half shimmy, half crawl through the gap that it makes. For once Ezra is glad that they’re both skinny, scrappy kids because else it would be a lot harder to fit through that hole.

Sure, its an awkward entrance but once he’s inside Ezra can’t bring himself to care because she’s complete. No smashed in computers or broken chairs. Everything sits neatly in its place, old and long forgotten about, and quietly dead but _here_. The systems are powered down and Ezra doesn’t recognise the design – it’s not Terran that’s for sure, but it doesn’t look like any other ship he’s ever seen either.

Ezra loves her at first sight.

“She’s whole?” His voice comes out high, breathless. He can’t bring himself to care.

Most ships left here are entirely destroyed. Wrecked to the point that rebuilding or fixing them becomes an impossible task. But this ship, she’s a perfect shell. And she’s one step closer than they’ve ever gotten before. Katzi nods and her whole body is tense but her four eyes are wide, and her teeth are showing. A grin lights up Ezra’s face, exhilaration building inside of him. He forces himself to calm down, clenches his fists and takes a deep breath, though he can’t wipe the smile away.

“Do you know where it’s from?”

“I can’t tell. And none of the systems come on when I try to get them to, but you’re better at computer shit than I am so… I was hoping you’d be able to figure it out.” She shrugs halfway through the sentence and Ezra can’t blame her from wanting to try herself first. He can’t be angry that she hid it, there’s something special about having a secret. Instead he just nods, happy to be here now, and hums to himself, brushing his fingers over the strange chairs. They sit low to the floor, almost legless against it.

Carefully he lowers himself into one of them, cross-legged and practically vibrating, just because he can. A ship! An honest, real life ship!

“It’s got energy?”

“Eh, not really _ta_. I mean, there is an old fashion solar synthesizer but it is mostly hidden under the other ships, so it would have to be moved _ta_. And I do not think it would be enough to make flight but it could probably power the computers, if the systems were working _ta_. I think.”

Katzi shrugs and taps at one of the inert screens. It doesn’t react. Ezra should be disappointed but instead he’s just bubbling over with excitement.

Ezra nods, finds he can’t stop nodding once he starts. Like he’s developed a strange twitch, grinning and nodding. Nodding and grinning. He laughs again and for once doesn’t feel utterly awful inside. Everything is good.

“Fuck, Katzi, this is amazing. What the fuck. Why would they leave it, like this? It doesn’t make sense, they crush anything that might be useful… how did you even find it?” He has a thousand questions, too many to count. Ezra can barely believe that the ship is here, around him. Briefly he wonders if this is some delusion, if he’s being slowly crushed beneath an alien ship and this is what his mind has given him.

No. It’s real. The ship exists here, beneath his skin and against the stone. He blinks and turns to look at Katzi. They both grin at each other again, confused and eager. She taps idly at the screen with the pads of her fingers and Ezra recognises the tune but couldn’t name it if he tried. Probably one of the Qlyyht children’s songs she hums when they’re alone.

Eventually she runs a hand over the smooth surface of her head and shrugs.

“I guess it is old and down the bottom here, _ta_. Maybe they were not as destructive back then? And then it got hidden until now _ta_.” Neither of them has an answer. It doesn’t matter.

Who cares why it got left behind, why it got saved. All they need to know is that it’s here. A ship. One that they could bring back to life.

Possibly.

Hopefully.

Ezra hisses out a breath and leans back in the chair. Something has changed, in him. In the universe even.

“We’re gonna fix it.” He tells Katzi and for the first time in seven years he feels at home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone and welcome! From the Fields is an ongoing fic that loves feedback so kudos and comment if you want more!
> 
> You can find me at https://uhhhhhart.tumblr.com/ where I mostly post Star Trek, I'm always happy to chat!
> 
> If you like my writing will you consider buying me a coffee? http://ko-fi.com/spencerb


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